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Reviewer: Bertil
van Boer
Bach’s B-Minor Mass needs no
special introduction, as it is one of the great choral works of the Baroque.
Recordings abound, and it has taken on an iconic status, even though its
composition represents no straight historical line. The end result, his test
piece for a position in Dresden in 1733, was presented as a unified work to
the Elector of Saxony. It may even have been performed at one of the
churches there, though I’m skeptical of the claims by at least one
musicologist that this actually happened. (Bach never did receive the post
there, though he finally obtained the title of court composer a couple of
years later; the title was an honorary one.) The initial work consisted of
the traditional Lutheran Mass of the Kyrie and Gloria, something Catholic
Dresden would have found of less use. That it may originally have been
written for Leipzig is not beyond the bounds of reason, but Bach had no
inkling that it would eventually become the foundation torso of a
full-fledged Mass. About two years before his death, the composer suddenly
built the current work up out of miscellaneous movements. The Sanctus dates
from over two decades earlier, and the Credo was cobbled together from
various bits and pieces, as were the rest of the movements. The result was
sprawling and hardly fit for any real church service; today it almost always
is performed in concert version.
All this being said, and given
the huge number of recordings, it is more about the performance than the
work. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is without doubt a
well-established and venerable organization, for whom the work contains no
pitfalls. Bach’s rather thick orchestration is handled with steadfast ease.
The opening Gloria, for instance, has the consorts of woodwinds and brass
suitably contained, allowing the cantata-like chorus to make short work of
the gnarly contrapuntal lines. The textures are just right, a powerful sound
emerges that offers Bach’s glorious music the correct underpinning. It is
joyful, majestic, and bold all at once. One telling movement is the “Quoniam
tu solus,” where for the only time in the work Bach employs a solo horn
above an accompaniment of a pair of bassoons. The bass voice of Neal Davies
is dark and virile, with a good sense of phrasing and intonation, while the
horn part seems to be a single D horn that has a higher resonance than one
might expect. The bassoons are discretely tucked into the background. The
transition to the “Cum sancto spiritu” is often one of difficulty, but here
the continuation is smooth and seamless, even though the tempo change is
radical. The other telling movement is the ostinato “Crucifixus,” where the
haunting flute accompaniment softly punctuates the treads of the bass and
the mysterious suspensions in the chorus. Here the effect is almost magical,
with just the right solemnity to the tempo and mixture of the choral and
instrumental textures. In a word, this is a fine disc. The performances are excellent by the Trinity College Choir and orchestra. The sound can be a bit on the wooly side from time to time, but only in the choral movements such as the “Et resurexit.” The soloists are all spot-on in terms of intonation and interpretation. If you haven’t yet acquired one of the many fine recordings of this work, you should check this one out. | ||||
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